ACC: Game two ready, game one quotes

By Glenn Tanner - May 26, 2007

North Carolina and Virginia are about to face off with the winner earning a spot in tomorrow's title game.

Both are sure #1-seed hosts. UNC is probably a lock for a national seed, and Virginia might be playing their way into one.

Virginia has been looking for a third starter all season, and today will give their closer Casey Lambert his second start of the season. He started Saturday against BC and threw four effective innings after picking up a save two days earlier. He has fanned 41 in only 28.2 innings, and opposing hitters a hitting a meager .194 against him.

UNC counters with freshman Alex White, who is 5-4 with a 3.66 ERA in 76.1 innings.

Quotes from the NC State-Georgia Tech game...

"It was a tough loss for us, but I felt like we battled hard all day. We had a tough time keeping their leadoff hitters off [reached in six of nine innings]. As fate would have it, a 90-foot single ends up winning the game for them. It's tough to take, but that's baseball." -- GT coach Danny Hall

"I like the format from the sense that the teams that go on and play will be more rested than they would be in a double elimination format. I like it. Is it a perfect system? Probably not, but I think it gives our league the best chance the following weekend to put our best foot forward in the NCAA regionals." -- Hall

"I was really curious about how we'd bounce back today, but we had batting practice at 8 a.m. and the team walked in like it was 12 noon. We really played well today." -- NC State coach Elliot Avent

"The way I heard is that 8 ACC teams are in the top 24 of the RPI. They invented RPI for a reason and now's the time to act on it." -- Avent

"I took some aggressive hacks early in the count because I didn't want to see that slider. Once he got two strikes, I tried to put the ball in play. He threw the inside fastball -- they beat me with that last time, and I just barely got it that time. I didn't think the pitch was a strike, but I didn't know what the umpire would call it." -- Caleb Mangum on his game-winning bleeder